Cargo-carrying trailers conventionally have ground engageable wheels supporting a trailer body having a front wall, opposed sidewalls, a top wall, and a floor terminating at the rear in a sill. Some trailers have doors hinged at the rear of the trailer sidewalls for swinging movements about a vertical axis between closed and opened positions. In their opened positions the doors preferably lie alongside and parallel to the trailer sidewalls. Preferably, the doors are latched in their opened positions, but sometimes the latches are inoperable or are not used for one reason or another. In any event, when a trailer is backed toward a loading dock the rear end of the trailer is not always perfectly parallel to the forward surface of the dock. In some cases, therefore, one edge of the rear end of the trailer strikes the dock. In some instances the force with which the dock is struck causes damage to a trailer door, its floor, or its sill, or to the dock itself.
A principal object of the invention is to provide protective apparatus which overcomes or greatly minimizes the undesirable characteristics referred to above.